Page 33 of Bodied

Lauren hesitated, almost scared for a second. She had recently betrayed him, after all. But no matter what they had been through, this was still Wesley, and she trusted him, so she got into his car. He reached across and closed her door.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “There’s been a development. You’re no longer safe.”

CHAPTER16

WESLEY

All while Wesley was doing the job he’d originally expected to be doing — guarding Anne Bartlett — he wished he was watching over Lauren instead. He’d been standing at the back door of Senator Bartlett’s office, his eyes on the alley but his mind far away, when one of his colleagues found him.

“We need to be on extra alert, Pierce,” he said to Wesley. “We’ve got a real threat this time.”

Wesley straightened from his partial slouch. “What’s that?”

“Tangible plans from the group in question. The FBI warned us. They got hold of a partial plan by having one of their agents infiltrate the online group that’s been acting suspicious. Unfortunately, the group is careful enough not to give away their identities or location. But we do know something’s going down. Possibly today. Get ready, and keep your eyes peeled.”

It took Wesley a moment to rule out that his coworkers were planning some kind of elaborate prank. The idea of a real threat seemed unthinkable, even though it shouldn’t have been. He worked in security. What did he think he would be doing? But somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d assumed he would not be using his military skills at all, that he’d be bored more than anything. It just seemed so incredibly unlikely that anyone would go so far to harm a senator. But apparently, Anne Bartlett wasn’t your average senator because she’d managed to piss off a relatively new and dangerous group of extremists. And they were prepared to take action.

“Any indication where they’ll be coming from or how they’ll try to get inside the building?” Wesley asked.

His colleague sighed and shook his head. “If they’re smart, they’ll come in right through the front like the senator’s daughter did. Senator Bartlett didn’t want to see her, told her assistant not to allow her into the office, but the woman waltzed right through like the wordnomeant nothing to her.” He shrugged. “So I guess that’s all it takes. Just walk in. That’s why I’m warning you all personally. Keep your eyes peeled because no one else here is.”

But the second his colleague had mentionedthe senator’s daughter, Wesley’s mind had gone fully one-track. “Lauren’s here?” he said.

“Didn’t I just say she was? Yeah, I think she’s still out front waiting for a ride. She’d better get one quick because?—”

“Watch my post!” Wesley shouted back at his colleague. He was already running for his car. Lauren could not be sitting outside her mom’s office today. Not if there was any chance she could be hurt. And if she was out there alone, waiting for a ride, that meant her new bodyguard was not with her.

He jumped in his car, started the engine, and spun the vehicle around to hightail it out of the parking garage. He peeled around the block, never minding the traffic around him, barely stopping at the stop signs. When he rounded the front of the building, he slowed his car down to see who stood out front. A familiar figure caught his eye. It was Lauren.

He pulled up in front of her and unlocked the door. Then he reached across the passenger seat and opened it wide. “Get in,” he commanded her. There wasn’t any time to ask nicely. And if he did, she might choose not to go with him. She might not really trust him, and that thought ate away at him. Had he really lost her trust completely? To the point where he had to bark orders at her in order to get her to hear him at all.

He gave her his cursory explanation, but he could tell it wasn’t good enough. “We’re going to my place,” he said. “Yours isn’t safe. They probably know where you live.”

She glanced over at him, and he could so easily read the worry in her face. “Who exactly arethey?” she asked.

There was no satisfying way to answer her. “Extremists. They’ve been gearing up on the dark web for some time, but there’s at least one credible source that says they’re planning to act today.”

Lauren sat ramrod straight when she heard that. “My mom?”

Wesley added a little more weight to the accelerator. “We can’t say for sure who the target will be, but your mother is well protected. You, on the other hand, appear not to be. Where’s your bodyguard?”

She gulped, and her face went pale. “I… I sent him to lunch. He was coming right back.”

“Did he know you were going to be standing unguarded outside?”

“No. He thought I would be in the office talking to my mom, but we got into an argument. I couldn’t stand to be there with her anymore. I had to get out.”

Wesley took an unusual route to his place, just in case. He momentarily wished he’d cleaned up a bit, since this would be the first time she was going to see it, but this was hardly the time for worrying about frivolous things like that. “It might be nothing,” he said, but it didn’t seem to be comforting her at all. “We’re always overcautious when something like this happens. I just didn’t want to trust you with anyone else.”

Lauren was quiet for a moment, and then she took a verbal swipe at him. “Couldn’t stand to risk your ‘bit of fun,’ could you? I thought I was all used up, so why bother?”

“What?” he shot back.

“We weren’t that serious, I thought. What was it you called me? A gamble you lost?” Her voice was cold, but her eyes were tearing up.

He wasn’t used to hearing so much venom from her, but he supposed he deserved at least a little of it. What he’d said the last time they spoke over the phone had been harsh, but he’d been so hurt. He’d wanted to minimize what they had, which he had no doubt was the right thing to do at the time. He was less certain about it now. But admitting he’d lost something huge, that they really did have something special together, and she’d gone and betrayed him anyway… The thought of that was almost too much to bear. So, he minimized it. If what he’d lost was just a bit of fun, he could accept he’d made a stupid mistake and move on.

The trouble was, the girl in question was close to bursting into tears in his car, and Wesley couldn’t stand to see her hurting. He muttered, “You have to know I didn’t really mean that.”

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